Monkeywrench

If ever there was a song you physically CANNOT listen to without having the urge to crank the stereo up to eleven* there has not been one. It is a perfect song for a bar fight. If ever I have the ability to score a bar fight with my mortal enemy** Kevin (not his real name***) this song would play in a loop until he was a whining pulpy faced mass on the floor. I would then chug back a double shot of high-test rum, walk briskly behind the bar and rinse my knuckles off in the bar sink, chewing on a lime garnish as I did, until the cops arrived. It would give me time to concoct my alibi and as a professional liar I am sure I could have one pretty fast.

“Kevin” is/was a jackass. “Kevin” was a skinny, tall bully who surrounded himself with other guys who did his bidding and his bidding was usually picking on the nerdlings including myself. Sure, being a short, small in stature guy who was not very adept at making/keeping/attracting friends and who was one of the more academic sorts who disliked hockey (a crime in my small town) I had at least one guy a year who made my life hell. Two of them are now dead and being a person who is very good at holding grudges way past their expiry date I smiled when I found out. Kevin however is still alive, in a management position with a wife and children. I’d post a photo from his corporate page if only to show you that he still has that smarmy look he had when he was sixteen, the one I’d like to punch while The Foo Fighters played overhead multiple times, but hey, maintaining anonymity for him and all that.

I have in recent years noted my fiery nun-punching angry hatred of Kevin to a few semi-close friends. They expressed “no idea” that he was like that and that he “always seemed nice” to them. “Well of course he did, you were female” I think. Not that he had a chance with any of these people, but in true form he hid his alternate self from them in the hopes they would be nice in return. Nice as in eighties teen comedy girls dating bad boys they had no idea were bad nice. Needy smarmy prick. I am SO glad he never got in any of their pants. I am also glad he had other personal, medical shall we say or more accurately pharmaceutical issues in his past. Sadly he overcame them so he probably feels pretty good about himself.

This frankly sucks.

We had a reunion a few years back that did not occur in the end. I had no desire to attend at first, but was roped into assisting organize it by a cute girl asking me to help and yeah, I’m a sucker for a cute girl asking me to do stuff. The only reason I found to be unlikely to bail on it at the last-minute was that he would be present. He and his wife and hopefully his older kids. In my mind I wrote a speech, as I was asked to, and in said speech I would crack jokes, introduce people, defer to the djay and all the usual jazz. I also had in my mind a separate speech add-on that would involve mentioning aloud how much I hated high school and how a good part of why I did and why I turned out to be as jaded toward humans in general was (dramatically point finger, spotlight goes up on his table) Kevin. To see his dainty wife, who stood by him as he overcame his personal crap and became a local business professional (of sorts, I mean I don’t stalk him but he clears MAYBE 70k/annum) and a father to her children, find out that he was a bully in school and there was at least one person who still could not be happy completely so long as he was still breathing, or at least not under a train bridge doing favours for hobos for beer money and smokes. My apologies, Long sentence. Run on thoughts.

I would then drop the mic dramatically, pull out a couple of pairs of boxing gloves and offer him the chance to go out back. He would decline with an embarrassed laugh, a laugh that rattles due to years of smoking etc. I would say “thought so”. Then just like the last reunion, I would get up, down my beer and walk out the door with my wife on my arm, get in my much-more-expensive-than-his car and crank Monkeywrench.
* If you do not get this reference, seriously, stop reading my things until you Google it.

** As opposed to my nemesis, Jason Priestly, who people have on and off thought I was